The Income Tax Department on Thursday decided to file a criminal case against city-based realtor Mahesh Shah for his alleged false declaration of Rs 13,860 crore under the income declaration scheme.

“We are going to file a criminal case under the Indian Penal Code against Shah for false declaration. The nodal officer will file the complaint soon,” said Chief Principal Commissioner of Income Tax B D Gupta during a press conference.

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Gupta claimed tax officials suspected Shah’s declaration since the start of their probe, but the reason for the realtor lying to the tax authorities was yet to be ascertained.

When asked “how Shah took the entire I-T Department for a ride”, Gupta responded: “Since the beginning, we had suspected that he didn’t have money. We had to accept his declaration due to technical reasons and following inquiries his declaration was cancelled.”
Gupta also said that a detailed report on Shah has been forwarded to Delhi. He added that the realtor didn’t reveal anyone’s name during the questioning. The I-T officials have questioned Shah for hours at their office and his residence.

However, Shah kept changing his version. During the questioning, the taxmen could only extract personal information about Shah that how frequently he used to fly to Mumbai, Bengaluru and other cities, stayed at five star hotels, and the past cases of cheque bounce against him.

Earlier this month, Shah had surfaced on a local TV news studio and said that he would reveal the names of people whose monies he had collected.

Police immediately took him to the I-T officials, who questioned him, but he did not reveal anything. The last time the I-T officials interacted with him, Shah maintained that he would come up with evidence and names of people.